{"id":12033,"date":"2026-05-02T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/?p=12033"},"modified":"2026-08-20T21:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:47:26","slug":"embracing-slow-travel-in-marrakech-more-than-a-choice-a-way-of-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/embracing-slow-travel-in-marrakech-more-than-a-choice-a-way-of-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Embracing slow travel in Marrakech: a way of life"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

The term ‘slow travel’ makes me smile. To me, it means something very simple: taking the time to inhabit a place until it is no longer foreign. This is what happened with the Marrakech medina, which I walked through and across, year after year, until it became my own. 1996. I didn’t know yet that I was going to stay.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

A joyful stubbornness<\/h2>

This word interests me when it describes a sense of coherence – what I eat, what I wear, what I produce, the way I move.<\/p>

I haven’t eaten animals for a dozen years. In 2020, I stopped designing leather bags -with a touch of nostalgia, but it no longer made sense. I rarely visit large clothing chains. And I don’t make reservations on major travel platforms, neither for myself nor for Dar Kawa. It is a stubbornness I cultivate with pleasure: an email is always worth more than a five-star rating, because a person took the time to reply to me. It is this very coherence that I call slow travel.<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Slow\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\u00a9Cilou de Bruyn<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Slow travel in Marrakech<\/span><\/h2>

Do you also remember the shops, the bazaars, where entering meant first having a conversation? We spoke before we spoke of prices. We sat down, sometimes, and drank a tea offered without even asking, systematically, at the artisan’s workshop as in the bazaar. I have even fled a souk simply because I couldn’t drink another drop.<\/p>

This ‘savoir-vivre,’ this art of receiving, belongs deeply to the Moroccan people. A way of being, as old as hospitality itself. The whole world has started to run, Morocco too, to the point of forgetting some of its traditions.<\/p>

I would still like to find, in the souks, the small carved wooden kohl bottles, the traditional lanterns, the bread baskets. And to find those large vessels with perforated lids, placed on the table before the meal, over which orange blossom water was poured over the guests’ hands, a towel always ready nearby. The time it took to wash one’s hands was already a whole world being told.<\/p>

There are also, of course, the wicker baskets that look identical from one shop to the next, interchangeable lanterns, babouches that have everything a babouche should have, except for having been made in Morocco. And those spice shops that have become stage sets, with signs and banners at the entrance, closer to an attraction than a business. Fortunately, there are still real ones – precious, hidden, far from the main thoroughfares, in neighborhoods you have to learn to know.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"slow\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\u00a9Tania Panova<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

A way of life: white or black magic?<\/span><\/h2>

There are things one does not tell in an article, and that is just as well. In certain quarters of the medina, there are still people capable of speaking of white magic and black magic – an ancient Moroccan tradition, almost secret today. I will give neither names nor addresses. Searching for them, asking, inquiring on the spot – that is part of the journey.<\/p>

There are also the storytellers of Jemaa el-Fna. The square has become very touristy, but it has always been, throughout time, a popular gathering place for Moroccans themselves. An ancestral oral tradition still continues there. Even without understanding a word of Arabic, watching a storyteller perform, with all their expressiveness, gives the strange and joyful impression of being part of it.<\/p>

In ‘The Caliph’s House’ (published in French as Le Caf\u00e9 Mabrouk and in English as In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams), Tahir Shah describes a scene that perfectly summarizes what slowness allows one to discover. He is negotiating for a small box in a souk, finds the price exorbitant, and protests that it is just a box. The merchant replies that the story it contains, however, is priceless. Taking one’s time is also that: learning to hear this kind of response.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Carossa\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\u00a9Val\u00e9rie Barkowski Archives<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

An economy of slowness<\/span><\/h2>

The medina has its carrossas – those hand-carts lined up at the exact point where cars can no longer enter. Between two trips, the men who handle them sometimes nap on them while waiting for a client, an arm folded against the sun. You place your suitcases, your shopping, and you walk alongside them to the house. An entire profession, built on patience and the unapologetic nap, providing work for many people. Today, motorbikes and tuk-tuks have taken up much of the space. One can imagine, one day, parking zones at the entrance to the neighborhoods, letting the carrossas reclaim their place, with their slightly wobbly gait, so much more alive than an engine. I speak about this at greater length in the article BALEK!<\/a> on Substack.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

In the medina, treasure hunting means finding the object you won’t see anywhere else\u2014the one you bring back like bounty, for yourself or as a gift, with that small, satisfied air of having searched for and unearthed THE piece. Our boutique<\/a> in Marrakech is overflowing with things like that, unavailable elsewhere, designed for those who return every season as well as for those who push open the door for the first time. Read the article<\/a> “Artisanal accessories in Marrakech: personal creations.”<\/p>

Online,<\/a> you will mostly find our classics, home linens first and foremost, for our loyal customers who have been ordering from us since long before the boutique opened. Returning home with something found nowhere else is like bringing back a little piece of Marrakech.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"slow\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Nicole Manfron<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Slow travel, without cheating<\/span><\/h2>

Two days, a list of the current ‘best addresses’ in your pocket, and you check them off, one by one, like a grocery list. They call this visiting a city. I call it skimming the surface.<\/p>

A carrot merchant in the medina forbids people from photographing him. For a long time, I found this strange. I understand now: he and his carrots are photographed all day long by people who never say hello, who never ask permission, who leave without a word. In front of him, or in front of any spice stall, putting away the camera and simply smiling, saying hello, buying something\u2014that changes everything. A smile never takes a bad photo.<\/p>

The world is moving, everywhere, Morocco too. What matters most of all is the attitude we maintain as we pass through it.<\/p>

I once saw a video: a young woman was surprised, almost sorry, that the medina now sells sandwiches in the street. Where is Morocco, she asked, with its dirt streets? A Moroccan man replied, in essence, that they didn’t have to remain frozen in a postcard to please visitors. He wasn’t wrong.<\/p>

And I read, elsewhere, the story of a hotel that only accepts reservations by handwritten letter, with another handwritten letter in return, and the freedom to throw it away, or not.<\/p>

A sandwich stand in a narrow street of the Marrakech medina. A handwritten letter to book a room on the other side of the world. Nothing in common between the two, except perhaps this: never losing the desire to stop anywhere, on the edge of a fountain, for no reason and without a watch, until someone, without being asked, hands you a mint tea.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Mint\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\u00a9Tania Panova<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term ‘slow travel’ makes me smile. To me, it means something very simple: taking the time to inhabit a place until it is no longer foreign. This is what happened with the Marrakech medina, which I walked through and across, year after year, until it became my own. 1996. I didn’t know yet that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[231],"tags":[539,541,540],"class_list":["post-12033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marrakech-whispers","tag-a-way-of-life","tag-authenticity","tag-medina"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/slow-travel-medina-marrakech-cilou-photo-e1788783948776.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12033"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16218,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12033\/revisions\/16218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.valeriebarkowski.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}